Thalia Spencer is missing. Is she in trouble or simply avoiding her family?

When his daughter disappears, conservative businessman John Spencer hires Toronto private eye Calli Barnow to find her. At first it seems like just another runaway case, but when Calli finds out that Thalia’s lover, Zoe, hasn’t seen her either, she starts to wonder if there’s something sinister going on. Then Thalia’s ex-boyfriend turns up dead. Is Calli hunting a killer or another victim?

This fast-moving thriller follows Calli Barnow through the twists and turns of Toronto’s neighbourhoods, from run-down but friendly Kensington Market to the Church Street gaybourhood, through the ravines of Rosedale and Mount Pleasant’s mausoleums.

Calli is an engaging companion, flawed but determined, pursued by her own demons as she tries to find a missing girl before more trouble finds her.

Private eye Casey Cook lands her first case, and it’s a doozy: find a missing comatose woman. Eager to prove herself, Casey does whatever it takes to get answers, from pretending to be pregnant to fawning over a hairless cat.

As she runs into one dead end after another, Casey wonders whether she should have left her retail job. Determined to show that she can do the PI thing, Casey refuses to give up, chases down every lead, and snags herself a girlfriend along the way.

A man is behind bars for crimes he didn’t commit.
A manipulative killer walks free.

Rural Minnesota police officer, Erin Ericsson, has been on the trail of this elusive criminal before. She knows there will be more crimes, and more victims. This time, she must catch the killer.

At her side is her girlfriend, Alyssa Brody, who has been blessed, or cursed, with a gift. Allie’s talent might lead them to the murderer if she can learn to control it. And if the volatile connection doesn’t shatter them both.

Their pursuit takes them across the Canadian border to the bustling city of Winnipeg. This is Allie’s comfort zone but Erin is out of her depth in the urban environment.

Can they overcome the obstacles before the killer strikes again… or targets them?

When Carly vowed things would be different at her new school, she had no idea just how different they would be.

She didn’t count on falling for Jane.

Nor on the fact that Jane hates jocks. In fact, Jane hates almost everything that interests Carly, especially the quiet, mysterious Tommy Mack.

Carly knows she’s in trouble when she deliberately loses a race and shuns Tommy Mack to impress Jane.

To make matters worse, she has to figure out where she stands on a whole host of issues, like drugs, alcohol, and a new and different kind of loneliness. Issues she has avoided because she has never had to stay in one place for too long.

Art, children, marriage, breaking, rejoicing. Love is a many-branched tree and in Hamilton’s newest poetry collection, her third, it’s autumn or winter, the winds are kicking up and branches are flying everywhere—bursting into a thousand shapes. Or maybe it’s Hamilton’s heart that explodes into many dimensions. Tender, furious, grief-stricken, witty, urbane, elegiac, political, personal, erotic—these poems are all those things. Hamilton can’t stop loving big no matter how chancy it is.

All these shapes lend raw material for a poem: Mothers lose their babies. A boy loses his leg to war. A girl hides from serial killer Richard Speck. A virgin gets pregnant. A partner mourns a death at Walkerton. Women tumble into love, celebratory and foolhardy.

Frank and elemental, Love Will Burst Into a Thousand Shapes reminds us that life is worth everything we can throw at it.

Fuelled by booze and boredom, Jac Lanier accepts an unusual wager from her best friend. Victoria, for reasons of her own, impulsively challenges Jac to seduce Lauren, her co-worker and a young woman Jac’s never met. Under the terms of their bet, Jac has exactly one month to get Lauren into bed or she has to pay up. Though Lauren is straight and engaged, Jac begins her campaign confident that she’ll win the bet. But Jac’s forgotten that if you sow an onion seed, you won’t harvest a peach. When her plan goes awry, will she reap the bitter fruit of her deception? Or will Lauren turn the tables on the thoughtless gamblers?

Natalie Meisner –Double Pregnant: Two Lesbians Make a Family(winner’s choice of print or e-copy)

Girl meets girl. Girl marries girl. They want to have babies…but they need a little help. Double Pregnant is author Natalie Meisner’s light-hearted, poignant and informative true story about starting a family with her wife Viviën. Because Viviën is a woman of colour who was adopted into a white family, the couple wants their children to have a connection to their donor and decide against taking the anonymous, sperm clinic route. But they realize they are going to need some help. Taking matters into their own hands leads the couple to a series of often-hilarious “dates” with potential donors, all of whom have wildly different opinions on how the donation process should go, and how Natalie and Viviën should proceed as a new family.

Pamela Wright will never forgive her sister for dying in the Afghanistan war, or the Army for Laura’s death, or anyone else for making it okay for Laura to go halfway around the world to fight for reasons Pam has never fathomed. Numb with grief, she buries her sister but not her rage. Among the mourners is Trish Tomlinson, who loved Laura long ago and has found the news of Laura’s death sharply painful. She remembers Pam as an unwelcome third wheel, but now finds comfort in the company of the young medical resident, and in the details of Laura’s journal that Pam shares. Brought together by grief, something more grows. Guilt and anger cloud their feelings and jeopardize any chance at a future. How can love blossom in the shadow of death?

Rabbits of the Apocalypse is set in a not-too-distant future plagued with drought, human trafficking, rabid religious groups, and people who completely lack a sense of humor. What with all the hunger, chaos, sunstroke, landmines, and radiation it’s hard to get by, and harder still to get laid.

In the remote desert town of Lafontaine, Casey Prentice has been trying to survive the endtimes by keeping her head down and refusing to give a damn about anyone except her younger sister Emily and wingman Malice Hiroyama. But that ceases to be an option when a powerful and mysterious entity known as the Anastasian League descends on the town.

Casey offers shelter to genius Pax, who is trying to escape the League. In doing so, she invites a whole new kind of danger into her life on top of a budding romance. The town of Lafontaine has a secret . . . and if the League discovers it, then the apocalypse will be the least of Casey’s worries.